Romney can't make lemonade out of Ryan lemon

from The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 17, 2012

email Stephen L. Goldstein: trendsman@aol.com

follow him on Twitter: @drslgoldstein

            Poor Mitt Romney: He can't make lemonade out of his Paul Ryan lemon. I’m thrilled that he chose extremist Ryan as his VP.

            I’ve had Paul Ryan on my mind for ages. My recently released novel, “Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!,” is a dystopia that paints a picture of free markets gone wild and the United States turned into the Corporate States of America by mean-spirited “captains of industry” who put profit over people. While I was writing it, I thought of people like Ryan, who idolize Rand and accept her preposterous (and poorly written) fiction as gospel truth. He used to give out copies of “Atlas Shrugged” as Christmas presents and try to make his Congressional interns read it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Romney would feel so desperate, that he would choose as his running mate so toxic a partner.

            Ryan is the consummate example of an adolescent whiz kid who was drugged on Ayn Rand’s Kool-Aid but never weaned from it, fancies himself John Galt—and grew up to be a second-tier technocrat on the taxpayer payroll, who is now raised to national prominence by a third-rate candidate for the presidency. There’s abundant evidence to poke holes in his delusional and frightening dystopia for the nation. “The Ryan Plan” (aka the GOP federal budget) is a roadmap for disaster, a war on the poor and the middle class. The Koch brothers couldn’t have written it better—probably tweaked the draft. The case against Ryan is laid out by ThinkProgress (thinkprogress.org). Here are highlights from it:

            1. Ryan wants to raise taxes on the middle class, cut them for millionaires.

            2. He would extend the Bush tax cuts, but not President Obama’s for those with the lowest incomes.

            3. Ryan would virtually eliminate programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes.

            4. He would end Medicare and replace it with a voucher system, raise eligibility to 67, cost enrollees more than $5,900 annually by 2050.

            5. Ryan thinks Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and wants to privatize it at the mercy of stocks and bonds, which he apparently believes are always safe bets.

            6. The Economic Policy Institute estimates Ryan’s budget would result in 4.1 million lost jobs in two years.

            7. He wants to eliminate Pell Grants for more than 1 million students.

            8. Ryan supports $40 billion in subsidies for big oil.

            9. He co-sponsored a “personhood” amendment, which would outlaw abortion, some forms of contraception and in vitro fertilization.

            I can’t wait for Ryan to debate Joe Biden, point by point on these and other equally sinister positions. He has all the suppleness of a bowling pin. Crafty Biden will deliver strike after strike against him, score a perfect 300.

            No one in his right mind would want to live in the America of Paul Ryan, except Mitt Romney. Many of Ryan’s supporters deny biological, survival-of-the-fittest Darwinism, but embrace dog-eat-dog social Darwinism, where unbridled greed is the greatest virtue and morality is determined by a dollar sign. But sadly, Romney isn’t trying to appeal to all Americans. Ryan, Mitt hopes, will make his candidacy acceptable to the tea party. He may fool them, but most Americans know “the fruit” of both those lemons “is impossible to eat.”

            "Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!" is available in bookstores nationwide, through www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, and other online booksellers. Order it NOW from Amazon (paperback or Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344306781&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned